


Midnight Snacks

by 0urhappygirl500



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Had a lot of trouble with the title I nearly called it boxes and labels, Some nice moments with little peices of angst littered between them, The Bats are Steph's family and she loves them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-22 21:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23367403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0urhappygirl500/pseuds/0urhappygirl500
Summary: Stephanie Brown has a lot of different late night visitors over the years
Relationships: Stephanie Brown & Bruce Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Dick Grayson, Stephanie Brown & Duke Thomas, Stephanie Brown & Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown & Leslie Thompkins, Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake
Comments: 13
Kudos: 133





	Midnight Snacks

The first time it happens it’s Tim though back then she didn’t know him as Tim. Back then he was just Robin to her.

It’s late… a few months ago she wouldn’t have said it was late, but she hasn’t been going out as Spoiler ever since she found out.

It was one thing to put her own life on the line to protect others but she wasn’t going to risk the baby’s life, even if the baby was going to go to someone else when it was born, she still had to protect it.

Here’s the thing that no one ever told her about pregnancy though, sometimes she just couldn’t get to sleep which was probably why she’d heard it.

_Tap, tap, tap._

It was so faint against the glass of her bedroom window that for a second she thought it was a bird, it did turn out to be a bird, but it was a different kind than her near sleep addled brain has been imagining.

The smallest glimpse of red and green had her scrambling to open her window as Robin gave her the smallest hint of a smile at the sight of her.

“Hey I didn’t think you were coming by today-“ she begins excitedly pulling him into her room before she notices the heavy set of his shoulders and concern is immediately overtaking her.

“What’s wrong?” and Robin almost flinches at her question before he tries to forces a smile.

“It’s… it’s nothing,” Robin tries to tell her before he takes in her worried expression and throws his head in his hand “I’m sorry, he’s just such a… a jerk sometimes!” Robin says clenching a fist slightly.

“He just doesn’t get it! I already do everything he asks and he doesn’t get what it’s like to have to lie to my da-“ Robin stops himself mid rant and even with a mask she can tell his eyes widened slightly as he let slip more than he was supposed to.

It hurts a little sometimes… loving someone like she loves Robin and she doesn’t even know his *name* but he’s worth it, Robin’s worth it, because he’s the first person she’s ever met in her entire life who actually seems to *care* about her and when she’s with him, when he holds her, she feels like she actually matters to someone and she’d do anything to hold onto that feeling.

She’s okay with not knowing his name; she’s okay with never getting to be part of his ‘real’ life, really. It’s fine. Just so long as he’s there, just so long as he still wants her because Steph’s known boys and men her entire life and none of them are like Robin, none of them make her feel the way he does.

The boys at school, the men her dad brings home, the men her mom brings home they all look at her with hungry eyes and forced touches, they pull her to the side and whisper things they want to do to her in her ear that make her nauseous in a way that even morning sickness can’t compare to.

But Robin… even through a mask he looks at her like she’s the most wonderful thing in the world and his touches are so gentle she knows that he’d never ever hurt her.

If having that comes with the price that she can’t know his name then she’d gladly pay it because there’s no guy better than him, not for her.

She wishes sometimes that she could be part of his life more but those are just wishes and Stephanie Brown doesn’t have a lot in life so she’s grateful for every piece of good that comes her way.

“Hey, hey” she’s coos slightly quick to try and reassure him, “it’s alright! I get it if you can’t say anything but please stay?”

He looks conflicted for a moment so she adds, “it would really help to have someone here right now kids driving me a little crazy, I swear they kick more then you do in a fight!” she jokes and his hesitance vanishes as slight excitement takes it’s place.

“They’re kicking already?” Robin asks moving awkwardly as if he wants to bend down and feel but isn’t sure if he should, she snorts a little at the sight.

“Well not right this second but if you stick around maybe you’ll get to feel the baby beat my insides like a mugger caught in the middle of patrol”

He chuckles at her joke and her heart does a small flip, she loves his laugh, he really should laugh more.

“A fighter like their mom huh?” Robin teases as Steph rolls her eyes though part of her feels sad, she’s not going to be this babies mother, that’s some other woman who can take better care of the baby than she ever could.

“Yeah, yeah laugh it up Boy Wonderful I was about to make some hot chocolate you want some?” she offers trying to bring her mind back to here and now and Robin nods as they both sneak into her kitchen not that they need to sneak because mom’s been getting bad again and she barely notices Steph when she’s in the room but she has been trying, her mom’s noticed Steph’s stomach getting bigger and there have been less pill bottles around the house so mom’s trying, she knows she is.

She makes hot chocolate for Robin and herself and even though she usually loves the brand it’s suddenly slightly too bitter on her tongue but Robin practically inhales it the weight on his shoulders seeming to lessen slightly as he rambles at her with a story that stops and starts at awkward places because there are pieces that he just can’t tell her but she nods and listens anyway because that’s what he needs, just someone to listen.

He listens to her stomach dutifully getting excited every time he thinks he feels a kick and she nods and smiles at him encouragingly even though she didn’t feel anything and part of her wants this night to last forever.

He leaves her with a small kiss and a promise to drop by tomorrow and Steph can only hope that she helped at least a little with whatever he was going through.

It happens again and again, over the next year even as things start to happen and she meets the Birds of Prey and she meets Cass and she learns his name, and earns the right to hear the full story during his visits.

He’ll show up sometimes in the middle of the night or towards the end of her patrol looking restless and she’ll make some hot chocolate and bring out some cookies and snacks and sit with him as he lets whatever’s running through his mind out.

When the hot chocolate begins to run low she remembers to buy some from the store picking up brands of snacks that he likes and she puts them all in a small box that she hides in the back of her closet labeled ‘ _Robin_ ’ and when she learns his real name she scratches out the ‘Robin’ and replaces it with ‘ _Tim_ ’.

\---

But before she finds out Tim’s name it happens again with someone else, someone she didn’t even think to expect.

She gets home from a late patrol and sees Batman luring in a tree near her house.

She nearly doubles back and runs away because yeah Batman’s made clear what he thinks about her which is fine it doesn’t sting at all (it does), but it’s not like she can go anywhere, he’s outside her house.

Besides she hasn’t done anything wrong, Batman’s a hell of a hypocrite if he thinks she can’t go out and fight crime, and she doesn’t care if Gotham is ‘his city’ over 9 million other people live here, it’s her city too!

So she swings up to sit by him and tries not to seem like she’s intimidated.

“You’re not a sneaky as you think,” she tells him because even though he didn’t show any reaction at her coming to sit in the branch next to him, even though he doesn’t read as anything at her sudden presence there’s just an air around him that feels almost surprised.

Steph’s very sneaky when she wants to be, she got very good at that when she was growing up, she had to. If she’d made a noise when her dad was in one of his moods it could mean time locked in the closet or worse and sometimes though she’s not proud of it she’d sneak in past her mom when her mom was present enough to tell she was in the room and try to talk to her but still not *there*, it’s just easier to avoid her mom than it is to go through some shallow conversation that Steph knows her mom won’t remember later.

Besides Steph’s used to people, especially adults not noticing her. She’s used to them not caring if she’s in the room or if she even exists. If she can use that to her advantage than she might as well it’s not like life is giving her many advantages after all.

Batman grunts at her presence and they both sit there in silence before nervousness bubbles up in her and forces her to speak.

“Well gee wiz not that this isn’t fun and all but are you going to tell me why you’re here?” she asks sarcastically because when has he ever told her anything and Batman’s mouth does a weird little twitch and Steph has no idea if he just found her funny or she’s annoying him.

For a second she thinks he’s going to grunt at her again but instead he asks “has Robin come by anytime tonight?”

She’s taken aback for less than a second and before she can even think to respond Batman continues, “I know he likes to come here when things are… difficult”

Steph gets the feeling that when Batman says ‘things’ he means that Batman himself has been difficult.

“Oh man what did you do this time?” Steph asks before she can stop herself and tries not to shrink in on herself at the displeased grunt Batman lets out.

She’s about to tell him to go away when her eyes fall back on the Bat symbol on his chest and suddenly her mind drags up the memory of when she was five years old, nursing a broken arm as she climbed up to the roof of her house to look out at the city and desperately search for the Bat signal lighting up the sky through her tears because even though her dad could knock her and her mom around Batman was someone even her dad was afraid of and Batman was the only one that managed to put her dad in jail and when her dad was in jail her mom was happier.

The Bat signal used to make her feel safe and sometimes she’d dream about seeing Batman one day drifting across the moonlight, he’d been her hero because he was the reason that the hitting and kicks and yelling and fighting and closets and pills would all stop even for just a little bit.

Of course when she actually met the guy it had been… disappointing but still he’s the only adult who has ever done anything for her in her life.

“Do you want some hot chocolate?” she asks before she even knows what she’s saying and keeps on powering on before Batman even has a chance to reply as if talking *more* will help her escape the embarrassment she’s already feeling. “It’s just that it always makes Robin feel better when he’s upset so maybe it’ll help but you honestly don’t seem like a hot chocolate drinker so coffee? That’s a more mature drink right?”

Batman doesn’t say anything in response and she can’t even begin to read him so she just says, “I’ll go get you some stay here,” before fleeing from the tree and back into her house.

She chooses the most expensive brand they have which honestly isn’t much but she’s seen the gadgets Robin has, Batman’s probably used to fancy things and this is the best she can do. She grabs a small plate and puts some cookies on it next to the coffee to make it seem like something from a café and after a moment’s hesitation she picks up a sticky note and writes a small message.

‘ _He’s probably already forgiven you but you should still tell him you’re sorry’_

She sticks the note onto the mug before she can stop herself before rushing to her room.

She can’t see him in the tree from her bedroom window anymore but it doesn’t *feel* like he’s gone so she leaves the coffee outside on her windowsill and closes the window and tries to push down her embarrassment and get some sleep before school tomorrow.

The next morning the cookies are still on the plate but the coffee is drunk and the note is gone so that sure is something.

It’s rare but it still happens occasionally where sometimes she’ll get home from patrol and see pieces of shadows at the corner of her eyes and she’ll make coffee from the best brand she has and leave it with some cookies and a message.

‘ _Just say sorry’_

_‘He’s doing his best’_

_‘He still respects you a whole bunch’_

The coffee is always drunk and the message is always taken so she keeps on doing it whenever she thinks he’s shown up.

She always makes sure they have a good coffee brand in the house from then on even if it means that there are some things she won’t be able to buy for herself and she picks up more of those cranberry cookies he actually ate one time and puts it all into another small box at the back of her closet which she labels ‘ _Batman’._

\---

The next time it happens she thinks anyone else in that situation would have had a heart attack and Steph wonders if it says something about her that it didn’t.

She’s asleep but something in the back of her mind just feels something and forces her to wake up.

She wakes up to Batgirl’s stitched masked staring right down at her from over her bed.

Steph doesn’t scream but she does fall out of bed.

“Cass what the hell?!” Steph exclaims caught between wondering if she’s underreacting or overreacting.

“Oh…. You woke up this time,” Cass notes taking Steph back a little bit.

“This time? You mean you’ve come and watched me sleep before?” Steph asks rubbing sleep out of her eyes as Cass nods.

“Why?!”

“Just… making sure you’re okay,” Cass says and Steph would have more to say to that because honestly that just gave her more questions than answers but Steph had seen Cass earlier that day during training and she didn’t look like this… tired and sad and almost defeated.

Cass was the most amazing person Steph had ever met she shouldn’t look anything close to defeated.

So instead of questioning Cass anymore she instead asks, “have you ever had rice krispies snacks?” and Cass looks confused for maybe half a second before shaking her head.

“Oh my gosh Cass you have to try them! I just picked up a bunch and they are my favorite thing ever wait here!” Steph says in a rush before heading to her kitchen to get the snacks and make some hot chocolate.

The slightly bitter taste of Tim’s brand never went away even after the baby so she switched to a sweeter brand only really buying the other for Tim but she thinks Cass will like this brand.

Sometimes Steph can barley believe that Cass is even real, Cass is everything a hero should be: she’s smart and skilled and everyone respects her and for some reason she hangs out with Steph and helps her train and she doesn’t even care about Steph’s dad at all!

Sometimes Steph thinks she might have wished Cass into existence because she’s the type of person that little kid Steph used to dream about meeting, the kind of person she used to imagine Batman would be like before Steph actually met him, scary but in a cool way and skilled and kind.

She can’t even begin to imagine what happened to make someone like Cass have a bad night, she didn’t even think someone like Cass could *have* a bad night but part of her felt a little honored that she came to Steph of all people to feel better and Steph did promise Cass she’d be her best friend and god damn it Steph took her duties seriously.

Cass hadn’t moved an inch since Steph had left and Steph tried not to huff as she dragged Cass onto her bed with her and handed her a mug of hot chocolate and spreading the rice krispies snack packets in front of them before she wrapped her blanket around the two of them.

Cass wasn’t really much of a talker but that was fine because Steph could talk enough for both of them, Cass leans into her and Steph tries not to think about how warm Cass’s body is next to her own as she rambles about any topic she can think of while Cass sips her hot chocolate and eats the rice krispies snacks.

Eventually it looks like Cass is ready to leave again and while it could just be wishful thinking on Steph’s part she thinks the other girl looks happier, more at peace.

“Wait!” Steph calls out stopping Cass as the other girl was about to put her mask back on “I don’t mind you… watching me so feel free to come by anytime, but if you wake me up we can hang out you know? If you want.” Steph says hoping she’s not blushing or embarrassing herself like she feels she is.

Cass gives a little grin and nods “okay I’ll come back again,” she says simply and Steph can’t stop her own grin even if she wanted to.

“Looking forward to it!” she calls out as Cass vanishes into the night, the faint traces of dawn barely making its way onto the horizon.

The first thing Steph does in the morning is go out and buy more rice krispies snacks.

It turns out to be a good investment since Cass keeps on coming back, sometimes Cass will wake her up or Steph will just wake up on her own and they’ll have hot chocolate and Steph will talk about anything and everything and sometimes she’ll wake up and find empty food packets on the floor.

Maybe Steph should think of a better hiding spot for her boxes because Cass keeps on breaking into the one she’s labeled ‘ _Cass_ ’ with a small bat in a heart next to the name.

\---

Steph never thought she’d ever so much as leave Gotham and now she’s on an entirely different continent.

She’s in Africa and she’s desperately trying to put herself back together again.

She flatlined and then Doctor Leslie Thompkins brought her back and then Steph was in a coma and when she woke up she was in Africa.

Every part of her still hurts every time she so much as moves, she’s covered in more scars than she ever thought it was possible to live through and she’s in a country which uses a language she can barely speak and she’s far, far away from everything she’s ever known and everything she’s ever loved.

Her mom thinks she’s dead.

Tim thinks she’s dead.

Cass thinks she’s dead.

Sometimes she wonders if it would have been better if she had died.

She screams and jumps and flinches at shadows and sounds and quick movements, she’s scared to go to sleep because more often than not she’ll wake up screaming from nightmares, any little thing could set her off and cause her to loose time and enter a dissociative state and even basic things feel like a chore now.

Sometimes Steph wonders if this is some sort of punishment, an exile and sometimes she wonders if she’s the punishment.

Those times when she sees Leslie look weary, that one time where she found Leslie crying in their tent and Steph wants to scream ‘why!? Why did Leslie give up everything for her!?’ but she doesn’t because Steph can barely face the anger she feels towards herself she can’t even begin to turn her anger towards other people right now maybe ever.

So when Leslie looks more tired than usual Steph makes some tea and she sits and talks with the older woman telling her about her day, about the people she’d met in town or at the market, about the people she’d helped with the things Leslie had been teaching her, about the families and children who thanked her for their help.

And by the time both teas are drunk Leslie looks lighter and there’s a strength in her eyes as if she’s been convinced all over again that all this was worth it, Steph’s not so sure about that, she’s not sure if she’s worth anything, but she doesn’t like seeing Leslie sad so she always makes sure that they have tea available, buying it at whatever town or city they come across in between villages.

Leslie buys her a little tea tin to keep the tea in on Steph’s 17th Birthday saying she noticed Steph always looked for teas whenever they went to a market.

Steph thanks her and hugs her and later that night she finds a little scrap of paper and writes ‘ _Leslie_ ’ on it before hiding the scrap inside the lid of the tea tin.

\---

Steph honestly doesn’t expect it to ever happen again.

Bruce is dead.

Tim is gone.

Cass is gone.

Steph’s trying, she’s really trying to protect to protect Gotham like they all did and being Batgirl is amazing and she loves Barbara and all but still… she misses them.

Maybe the expectation that it would never happen again is the very reason why it did.

She headed back home from patrol early that night since she had readings to do since she had a seminar the next morning and the lecturer was the worst, like went into the system and marked Steph absent from the seminar once because she was twelve minutes late one time the worst, like part of her was hoping this lady would become a super villain soon so Steph had an excuse to punch her in the face the worst.

Needless to say Steph needed to do the readings so she wouldn’t get in trouble in that class and it’s unpleasable teacher.

Steph was expecting a night of nearly crying as she tried to make sense of the driest readings known to man and maybe make some notes about it, what she was not expecting was Damian Wayne sitting on her bed in full Robin gear with his arms crossed and the most sour put upon expression in the world on his face.

Steph nearly radioed in Oracle to ask her what the heck was going on or at least tell her to send Dick to pick the kid up when the image of Tim as Robin, frustrated and angry at Bruce, tapping on her window for even the slightest bit of comfort, flashed in her brain.

Swallowing down a sigh she put away her communicator and entered her room making sure her movements were loud enough that Damian heard her coming in.

“Brown good you’re here,” Damian said noting her presence as she came in through the window, “Grayson is being ridiculous so I will remain here until his emotions settle down and he comes to his senses,” Damian told her as Steph rolled her eyes.

So Damian was hiding out at her place because he upset Dick huh? She didn’t say that out loud though that would probably cause a fit instead she says “oh thank god you’re here you’re supposed to be super smart right?”

Damian looked taken aback for a second before regarding her with a pleased air “my mother had me raised with some of the most skilled teachers in the world, far superior than anything you could even comprehend,” he was bragging but honestly everything he’d ever told her about his ‘training’ only made her sad.

“I’m not surprised you’ve gotten into some form of trouble without me, how any of you manage by yourselves is beyond me,” he told her smugly and Steph could barley keep herself from muttering out ‘watch it’.

“What do you need me to save you from this time?” Damian asked though despite his tone and his whole Damian-ness he still managed to have the curious air of a regular ten year old.

“School work,” Steph said pulling out papers and books littered near her bed “I have a seminar tomorrow with a teacher who hates me and I have to make sense of these readings somehow even though they barely make sense even after they’re translated to English,” Steph explained as Damian gave out an almost theatrical sigh.

Maybe he was spending too much time with Dick, or her, but she’d rather put things needing blame on Dick if she could.

“The American Education system is a joke I’m not surprised you’re having trouble,” Damian says holding his hand out for the papers and Steph can’t help the laugh that escapes her, a few weeks ago there would have been a lot more insults directed at her in there, progress!

“Thanks, I’m going to get us some study snacks and then we’ll get to it okay?” she says ruffling his hair a bit ignoring his indignant squawks as she went rummaging through her cupboards for junk food Damian’s probably never allowed himself to try before, on god she *will* give that boy something resembling a childhood.

She also warms up some milk and adds a little honey to it because that used to cheer her up as a kid whenever she was feeling sad.

Steph brings the milk and snacks back up to her room where Damian already has the books and papers spread out and somehow highlighted, he turns up his nose slightly at her offerings but takes the milk and starts sipping it slowly anyway.

Damian launches into what may as well be a lecture on the readings but at least Steph will be able to say she knows what the heck they’re about, part way through Damian’s lecture he starts opening up some snacks, he seems to lean towards the spicy stuff over the sweet stuff and Steph finds herself making a note of that.

A little bit after the mini lecture was done and the snacks were nearly gone Steph found out that Dick freaked out when Damian nearly got knocked into the harbor on patrol and Dick’s freaking out, freaked Damian out.

“Well of course he freaked out Dami what if something happened to you!” Steph exclaimed while Damian just scowled at her.

“He severely over reacted, I’m far more trained than any-“ Damian began as if explaining something simple to a child before Steph interrupted him.

“It’s not about training Damian it’s just… being worried for someone you care about,” Damian was looking at her confused so Steph paused for a moment trying to figure out how to phrase it so that Damian would understand “look at it this way… Dick’s got a tone of training, he’s been doing this longer than either of us and has a bunch of experience but you’d still be worried if Dick was in danger right?” she asked as Damian huffed.

“That’s different I’m Robin it’s my job to look after him,”

“And he’s your guardian right now which means it’s his job to look after you,”

“But we’re supposed to be partners!” Damian protested sounding every bit like the child he actually was.

“Partnerships go both ways,” she retorted and Damian went back to sulking but actually looking like he was considering her words.

“Besides!” Steph exclaimed trying to lighten the mood “if something happens to you who will help me with my readings and make sure I pass all my classes?” she asked and that made Damian give out a little snort.

She probably shouldn’t have been so pleased with herself at that small smirk but hey it was a victory and she was taking it!

“I suppose I do have to keep you from bringing dishonor to my father’s symbol, …and someone should at least try to give you a proper education” Damian said looking at the books with distain.

“Yes my hero what would I do without you,” Steph said sarcastically and either Damian didn’t hear it in her voice or no one had taught Damian what sarcasm is yet because he simply nodded in agreement with her.

“I should be getting back to the Bunker before Grayson becomes besides himself looking for me,” Damian says standing up and heading towards the window before pausing looking slightly lost in thought until he finally looked at her and said “the food while lacking in any nutritional value was not wholly unpleasant,”

“Feel free to stop by anytime!” she called out as he left and even though she was partly joking she still restocked on all the snacks Damian had eaten the most of and a jar of honey and put them all in a box she marked ‘ _Damian_ ’.

\---

Damian ended up taking up her offer a lot, regularly showing up after patrol stating he needed to help her get a proper education as he ate the snacks she gave him. Most of the time it was a gamble to figure out whether or not he actually thought he was tutoring her now, she’d gotten him hooked on junk food, something had happened with Dick or he just plain liked hanging out with her.

Honestly Steph liked hanging out with Damian as well, it made her wonder if this was what having a younger sibling was like… it was kind of nice, plus her grades were actually improving so bonus!

One night though he was waiting for her bundled up in her blankets as if he was trying to make himself disappear and if that wasn’t a sign that things were bad she didn’t know what was.

She didn’t say anything though, simply took out his favorite snacks; made him some warm milk with honey and wrapped him up in some extra blankets.

Damian wasn’t saying anything but that was okay, she could talk, lately Damian had been trying to teach her Arabic, she thinks it’s because he misses talking to someone in his first language. She doesn’t know if she just picks up languages quickly after nearly two years in Africa or if Damian was just a good teacher but she’s been learning the language far more quickly than she expected but even with her fast progress she’s still putting her skills to the test as she tries to tell Damian about her day in Arabic.

She knows her sentences are awkward and she’s stopping and starting a lot but it has its intended affect and Damian begins to visibly calm down. Absentmindedly she pulls him close and begins combing her fingers through his hair, neither of them comments on it so she just keeps on doing it until eventually she feels Damian’s body slump against her as a signal that he’s fallen asleep and Steph doesn’t dare move and risk waking him.

She’s not sure how long they stay like that until suddenly Dick Grayson is crawling through her window looking beyond relieved at the sight of Damian there.

She holds a finger to her lips to signal Dick not to wake Damian and Dick’s movements suddenly become less telegraphed as if he was deliberately making noise before.

Dick’s wearing the cowl but he looks entirely different than Bruce did with it, at least to her. Eventually he pulls it back and Steph is hit with just how tired he looks, his expression can only be described as bittersweet, fondness and worry apparent in his eyes.

Despite the fact that he’s close to all the important people in her life, Steph doesn’t know Dick. He’s always been in the ‘big leagues’ and most of the time Steph’s just fighting for the chance to stand on the stage, all their interactions have been in passing or based around a mutual third party they both care about, the only, one and one conversations they’ve ever really had are the times when he’s called her asking her to check on Tim or asking if she knows if Tim’s okay.

She doesn’t know Dick, she doesn’t owe him anything but still he looks tired and she knows that things must have been hard on him lately: for all she misses Tim and Cass, they were his siblings and she’s messed up enough over Bruce despite never being able to figure out what the man ever meant to her, it has to be worse for someone actually raised by him.

She doesn’t owe Dick anything but still; she’s been offering respite to tired vigilante’s for a while now so she breaks the silence that has fallen over them.

“I’m pretty sure there’s some cereal that Alfred keeps on confiscating from the pent house in Damian’s box,” she says quietly and Dick looks confused for a second before Steph gestures her head towards the closet and Dick hesitantly moves towards it, she can tell he sees the other boxes, the ones she still keeps stocked up even without the people they’re meant for, she can tell he’s curious or maybe he already knows what they are but either way he doesn’t say anything.

He just fishes out the box of lucky charms from Damian’s box and sits on the other side of Damian occasionally munching on the sugary cereal, he offers her some and they both just eat the lucky charms. It’s kind of awkward; it’s kind of nice. Dick doesn’t say anything and Steph isn’t going to force him to talk that should be more Barbara’s thing anyway.

Oracle probably already knows what happened on Batman and Robin’s patrol so if Steph really wanted to she could get the whole story from her.

Eventually Damian wakes up he seems a bit embarrassed but mostly just tired, he mutters a small goodbye to Steph and Dick gives her an appreciative smile and then they both leave through her bedroom window.

“Thank you… for handling that so well” Oracle’s voice whispers in her ear as Steph is closing her window and it is only then that she realizes that she never took off her uniform this whole time and her communicator is still in her ear.

Thank god her mom was working the night shift tonight.

Steph shrugs even though Barbara can’t actually see her and goes to clear everything up.

“No problem, it’s not like I haven’t had vigilante’s knocking on my bedroom door before… what happened?” she asks hesitantly still not sure if it’s really her place.

There’s silence on the other end before Oracle replies.

“There was a case with Hatter involving some grade school girls they… didn’t make it,” Barbara tells her as Steph sucks in a quick breath through her teeth at the information “Damian took it harder than expected,”

“Of course he did, he’s just a kid himself!” Steph defended and there was some silence on the other side of the line before she heard Barbara whisper.

“He is isn’t he?”

It was so quiet Steph was sure that Barbara was more talking to herself than her just then so she lets it go, sitting down on her bed and letting out a large sigh.

“Was my place the first place you guys checked?” Steph asked curiously trying to ease the tension in the conversation.

“Not the first place,” Barbara replied jumping on the topic change, “but close we know he’s been coming here to sulk”

“Ahh it’s fine, I kind of like having him around believe it or not,”

“I’ll take your word for it… but seriously Steph, you’ve been a big help not just tonight but-“

“It’s fine O!” Steph interrupts feeling a little embarrassed at the rare praise, “it’s what I do.”

No one really mentions that night afterwards and things go pretty much back to normal, she still goes on Patrol and every now and then Damian comes to her place to sulk or blow off some steam or just hang out.

The only major consequence from that night is that one day Steph comes home to find a small box just outside her closet filled to the brim with sugary snacks, some of them Steph has never even bought in her life because they are too expensive to even remotely justify buying with how unhealthy they are.

The box is already labeled ‘ _Dick ;)_ ’

\---

Dick’s been hanging out at her place every now and then, honestly Steph thinks he’s just using her to hide food that Alfred would confiscate if he kept it in the manor or the penthouse but it means they’ve been chatting and having actual conversations which has led to Steph hanging out at the bunker and penthouse to spend more time with Damian and Dick’s been teaching her some cool flips.

A side effect of her hanging out with Dick and Damian more is that she gets to see Alfred more and they’ve been having tea together, apparently Steph’s pretty good at making tea.

Which honestly after all the tea she’s bought in Africa and all the trial and error of figuring out how to tell which are the good tea leaves, she better be good at making tea.

It was nice chatting with Alfred; they used to have little talks like this back when she was Spoiler and every now and then for the brief time she was Robin and she liked to think Alfred enjoyed their little chats and tea breaks together as well.

Most of the time Alfred picked the blend but she’d found a really good one in the farmers market that her mom had dragged her to over the weekend that she was dying to show it off.

This wasn’t the first time Steph had chosen the tea so he wasn’t too surprised when Steph said she had found a new blend but as soon as Alfred laid eyes on the box his expression saddened, the lines on his face seeming to deepen.

“…Alfred?” Steph asked hesitantly, “do you… do you not like the brand?”

Alfred shook his head as if he could tell that Steph was already trying to figure out what she had done wrong.

“It’s nothing Miss Stephanie it’s just… this was Master Jason’s favorite tea before…”

“Oh,” is all Steph can get out because what can she even say?

Steph doesn’t really know how to feel about Jason but then again she’s not sure any of them know how to feel about Jason but Steph’s own emotions are complicated enough without trying to figure out everyone else’s.

It’s just… Jason had been her Robin as a kid the one she’d had tried to imitate when she first started learning gymnastic moves, the one she looked up to because he had the same lower Gotham accent as her and his fighting style just screamed street sometimes and it gave Steph this ray of hope in her heart that maybe the kids from the poor side of Gotham weren’t lost causes like every adult she had grown up around thought, maybe they could be heroes.

Back when she had been Spoiler no one ever talked about Jason, at least not to her but even with the minimal about of information she got, she could always tell something bad had happened to him and she had remembered the Robin who had the same accent as her and fought with the same kind of ferocity she did and then she’d wonder if maybe that’s the reason Batman never seemed to give her a real chance.

When Steph had come back from Africa Jason had already made his own return to Gotham and the memory of the second Robin had become bitter amongst the Bats in an entirely different kind of way than before.

By all accounts she should hate him, he’s hurt Tim, he’s hurt Damian but when Steph thinks of Jason what she feels is… longing.

She loves Tim and Cass and Babs and Damian and Dick and Alfred, she does, she really does, more than anything. It’s just that there are things that none of them understand.

Cass and her relationship with David Cain come close but there are some things that Cass isn’t able to understand about her the same way there are something’s that Steph couldn’t begin to understand about what Cass had been through.

When Steph had learned the story of Jason Todd it had been familiar, too familiar. She could see his life when she closed her eyes because it was her life, the same story with just a few different pages.

She doesn’t blame Jason for his anger the way the rest of them seem to do, she can understand why he’s angry at the world and everything in it.

She knows what it feels like to have a dad who’s never around only seeming to get out of jail just to mess up everything that had been built in his absence.

She knows what it’s like to be unable to do anything but watch the woman who raise you turn to something anything to ease the pain of the situation they’re in and slowly fade to nearly nothing before your eyes as the poison taking away her pain slowly kills her.

She knows how it feels to feel so helpless that the only way you can protect your mother is to throw yourself in the middle of the fight so you can take some blows in her stead.

She knows what it’s like to literally die just for the chance to earn some love even if it wasn’t from the people who raised you.

She knows what it’s like to feel lost and broken and try to put yourself back together again even though you know you should be dead. You should be dead!

Stephanie Brown knows Jason Todd, even if she’s never met him in person. She knows him.

And she knows how lucky she is even disregarding all the statistics that tell her she should have never made it to college, that tell her she should be a criminal or a victim right about know. She knows how lucky she is with the life she has because at just the right moment someone tried to protect her for once in her life.

Jason didn’t have a Leslie, he didn’t have someone to help him pick up the broken parts of his soul and give whatever was left room to heal and repair itself, no whoever Jason had had, had taken those broken fragments and stabbed them into his heart leaving more scars and holes.

Maybe that was their intention or maybe it was a dreadful consequence of their best efforts to help him but that was the result.

Steph knows she’s lucky but she wishes with all her heart that Jason could have been too… it would have been nice to have someone around who understood Gotham the way she does, the way the rest don’t.

She thinks Alfred is going to choose a new tea but he insists on drinking the one she brought, his eyes are slightly misty and she can tell he’s trying to hide it behind the tea’s steam. He has a far away look as if he’s imagining another time and another person he used to drink this tea with, with a similar accent to her in her place.

Later when she goes home Steph takes the remaining tea bags and puts them in an old tea tin she found in the back cupboards and after a few moments of hesitation writes ‘ _Jason_ ’ on the bottom in permanent marker before stuffing the tin in the very back of her closet behind her old Spoiler uniform and some moth eaten jumpers.

That night she dreams of having tea with a boy who has a similar story to hers and hopes he’ll get a happier ending one day.

\---

Things are good.

Barbara helps her with training and missions. Steph hangs out with Dick and Damian, she has tea with Alfred… and Bruce is back.

She feels his presence outside her house exactly three days after the slap and she pulls out his box that she kept stocked up even when she had thought he was dead and makes him coffee with cranberry cookies on the side and a little note that reads,

‘ _Welcome back,’_

Things only get better when she gets back from patrol one night and finds Cass having broken into her box munching on rice krispies snacks in a badass new costume apparently having been waiting for Steph to come home.

Steph was so happy that night she practically tackled Cass for a hug.

Things are good, and then one night there is a familiar tapping at her bedroom window.

It’s just as she’s settling into bed after a night of patrol, trying to catch a few hours of blissful, beautiful sleep before she had to be up for class tomorrow when she hears it, soft and faint and as unsure as the first time she heard it.

_Tap, tap, tap._

She looks up and there’s Tim Drake tapping at her bedroom window his mouth in a thin line.

Habit has her opening up her window for him before her brain even processes what her body is doing and the next thing she knows Tim’s standing in her bedroom, just like when they were kids.

Tim is almost impossibly still for a few moments and Steph wonders if he’s lost in his own memories and nostalgia before he seems to come back to himself.

“I-“ Tim begins, his voice dry and strained, “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have come here, I’ll go I’ll-“

“Wait!” Steph interrupts him, grabbing his arm as he turns to leave. They both look slightly shocked at her hand on his arm for a second before Steph presses onwards.

“I was about to make some hot chocolate, would you like some?”

Something in Tim almost crumbles at her question and he gives her a watery smile.

“I’d love some,”

Tim’s box hasn’t been kept as well stocked up as the others but all the important parts are there, his slightly bitter hot chocolate and his favorite snacks. She leaves the food out for him as she goes to prepare the drinks and when she gets back she sees he’s taken off his cowl, his hair a slight mess, staring at a bag of his favorite potato chips as if it would tell him the secrets of the universe.

She takes the bag from him as she hands him his hot chocolate opening up the bag and eating some of the contents before offering Tim some, which he hesitantly takes.

They sit there in silence for a bit just drinking and munching on junk food.

It’s nice… nice and familiar and comforting in the way that wrapping yourself in a blanket from your childhood feels like.

Eventually though Steph does break the silence because ever since she came back from Africa Tim has been darker, and colder and she’s been avoiding the topic but it’s not fair on Tim for her to try and hide from his sadness, not when she knows she’s one of the reasons it’s there in the first place.

“Rough night?” Steph asks because she can’t think of anything else other than something going wrong on patrol, Tim always seemed to think he could control everything which meant nights where they weren’t able to save everyone always hit him the hardest.

Tim let out a strangled laugh as he ran his fingers through his hair.

“You… you could say that yeah,” Tim muttered and Steph waited patiently to see if he would continue. “I kind of got into a fight with Bruce,” he told her and this time it was Steph who let out a laugh.

“Oh man we’ve all been there buddy. You want me to yell at him for you?” Steph offered as Tim snorted the look on his face showing that he was very tempted to take her up on it before something unreadable flashed through his eyes and he seemed to suddenly shut down.

“Tim,” she whispered putting her mug down in worry placing a hand on his bicep, which felt both too intimate and yet not intimate enough “what happened? Can I help?”

It takes him a while to respond and when he does it’s so quiet that if Steph hadn’t been so focused on him at that moment she might not have heard it.

“I tried to kill Captain Boomerang,”

Steph wasn’t sure what reaction Tim was expecting but he didn’t give her any time to react already elaborating.

“I gave him every opportunity to not be in that situation! I gave him countless of outs! Those were all his choices! It would have been his fault! I-“

“Tim! Breath.” Steph said and Tim looked a little surprised by her request but complied anyway, with Tim finally pausing Steph took the moment to talk.

“So I’m guessing by ‘tried’ to you mean you didn’t actually? Or it didn’t work?” Steph asked and Tim took a gulp of air his Adams-apple bobbing slightly before he answered her.

“No I, I ended up saving him,”

“But Bruce knows you planned it and is mad about it anyway?” Steph guessed and Tim nodded with a bitter expression on his face.

Steph closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths.

“Bruce is… he can be an asshole but I *know* he cares about you,” Steph says and Tim opens his mouth to protest but Steph continues before he can “I care about you”

She says the last part so quietly she wouldn’t know that Tim had heard her if he hadn’t suddenly froze, his hand is suddenly over hers, the one that’s still touching his arm, longing has joined all the other emotions playing across his eyes.

Steph closed her eyes, there was no words to say, nothing that she could do to really make it better, not right now when everything was so fresh and raw.

“Black Mask shot me…” Steph said and she felt Tim’s flinch, “but before that… before that I had his gun. I could have killed him, he was daring me to and I wanted to Tim. I wanted to so badly he… he had hurt me and he didn’t *stop* and I… I wanted to kill him but for some reason I couldn’t do it,” absentmindedly she felt someone wiping tears away that were rolling down her cheek but it felt distant.

“It wouldn’t have changed what he did… that’s the thing, I’d still, I’d still be hurt and all he would be is dead. The hurt won't go away with him, do you… do you understand what I’m saying?” she asked with a shuddering breath.

“Then what do I *do* Steph!? How do I stop hurting?”

You don’t, not really, is what Steph thought but she would never, ever say it out

loud.

“I don’t know Tim… I don’t know how to take the pain away, I tried running away and still I-“ she took a breath “I can’t take the hurt away Tim all I can do is offer people some snacks and a warm drink and a place to rest…”

“I’m not leaving Tim, I’m done running so all I can promise you is that I’ll be here for you… no matter what you do or decide if you want me to be, you just tap on my window and I promise you I’ll let you in and make you hot chocolate” she looks him right in the eye as she says it a strangled laugh coming from them both towards the end.

Tim still seems weary but he’s cupping her face looking at her like she’s the most precious thing in the world.

“I’d- I’d like that,”

\---

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Villains still attack, she and the rest of the Bats still fight crime and midnight snacks still happen.

There’d been a long case so she and Tim were staying at the manor tonight, she had just exited Tim’s room to get a glass of water when she catches sight of Duke across the hall exiting his own room.

They freeze like two deer in the headlights staring at each other for a few moments before it’s Duke who breaks the silence.

“I was just… going to get a glass of water,” Duke says awkwardly pointing in the vague direction that would lead to the manor’s kitchen.

Steph lets out a snort as she leans against the doorframe.

“Same… you know if you’re hungry I have a stash of junk food I’ve managed to hide from Alfred,” she says wriggling her eyebrows and Duke looks taken aback for maybe half a second before curiosity and excitement overtake him.

“Oh yeah what kind?”

Steph shrugs.

“Just the usual stuff, I’ve got some pringles, I’ve got some M&M’s, I’ve got some pop-tarts”.

“Pop-Tarts?” Duke asks his eyes lighting up

“I’ll share if you keep quiet about my stash from the others,” Steph offers with a smirk.

“Done.” Duke says without hesitation and Steph holds in a fond laugh as they both make their way to the kitchen.

They end up breaking into the rest of her stash as well not just the pop tarts but it’s worth it to be able to talk the families newest member, Duke mostly sticks next to Damian, the two of them are only two to three years apart in age or Cass who’s been telling Steph so much about Duke that she already feels like she knows everything about the kid.

Duke’s also had a few good bonding moments with Jason the lucky son of a gun.

Whatever she still gets to have tea with Jason and Alfred every other Sunday if both she and Jason are in the country so she has that.

She and Duke talk about anything and everything, he talks about hanging out with his friends from the Robin movement, she talks about the team she and Kara formed and the newest members the new Aqualad and a new hero named Sideways, he tells her about the work he and Cass are doing with the Outsiders and she tells him about the cases she and Tim have been working on across the country.

Usually vigilante talk isn’t permitted upstairs but Alfred’s asleep right now and they both promised not to tell.

Steph knows these aren’t the most normal conversations but she wouldn’t trade any of this for the world.

Unfortunately though eventually it starts getting late or maybe early and Steph has classes in the morning and Duke has day patrol so they both decide to call it a night.

Duke asks if he can keep the box of pop-tarts and Steph lets him on the promise that he won’t tell Alfred where he got it from if he gets caught. She’s around sixty percent sure he won’t sell her out, probably.

Later in the day after she’s done with class she buys nearly an entire shelf of pop-tarts and gets a new box, the process now familiar to her. With a smile on her face she labels the newest box ‘ _Duke’_

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's been a while since I've updated any of my other fics but this had been playing in my head for a while and wouldn't go away. Things have been a little hectic these past couple of months but you know how it goes. Every one is stuck at home so maybe I'll have more time to write. Everyone please try to stay safe.


End file.
